


Forget-Me-Not

by rw_eaden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief mentions of Hell memories, Canon ends after season 8, Depression, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Human Castiel, Post-Canon, Sappy Ending, hell memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rw_eaden/pseuds/rw_eaden
Summary: Castiel has trouble adjusting to life after he finds out about Meg's death. It gets worse when he's stripped of his grace and becomes human. So he finds a way of coping.





	

Castiel sits in his room. He has one of those now, because the Winchesters have a home now, and as he’s got nowhere else to go and no one else to be with, he lives with them. It’s mostly bare for now, just four walls, a lamp, and a bed, but it’s his space. He can be alone here. And that’s what he wants right now.

No, actually that’s not what he wants. What he wants right now is for the gaping pit in his chest to close up. He didn’t know he could hurt this bad. He’s been in pain before, he’s had more wounds that he can count at this point, but this, this is new. And it’s awful.

He had been sitting with Sam and Dean in the war room of the bunker, watching an old exorcism the Men of Letters had performed, but in this one they had found a way to cure a demon, to cleanse their soul. It would be Sam’s final trial to close the Gates of Hell, all they had to do was to find a worthy demon. Castiel had suggested Meg, but as soon as her name fell from his lips, both Winchesters went silent and stiff. Sam explained, in a soft voice and sympathetic smile, that she was gone.

“She died to save me?” Castiel had asked.

Sam nodded, and Castiel excused himself to the room that was now all his and only his.

He doesn’t move for several hours.

\-----

Dean finally drags him out of his bedroom the next morning. He had refused to have dinner with the Winchesters. He doesn’t need to eat. He’s an angel. He’s above that need. He’s above so many of the trivial human things, like eating and sleeping and decorating his own room, like Dean suggests he should. He is above human things like lust and desire and dreams and love. Or, he should be. He shouldn’t be feeling what he is right now. It shouldn’t hurt to breathe and his eyes shouldn’t burn with unshed tears.

He sits silently with the Winchesters while they eat their pancakes. He drinks his coffee black. His grace tastes like chemical reactions, like fusion and molecules that vibrate across his tongue. It’s annoying and irritating, but at least it’s some physical sensation to focus on. It makes him want to chuck his coffee mug across the room, to watch it explode and shatter when it hits the concrete wall, but he doesn’t do that. He grimaces his way through three whole cups.

The three of them split up after the food is gone and the dishes are washed. Dean sets about getting a few duffle bags ready and Sam takes a shower. Cas heads back to his own room.

Dean says goodbye before they leave. He leans in the doorway and wraps his knuckles against the doorframe, teetering back and forth on his feet. He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.

\------

The Winchesters return and Castiel hasn’t left. Dean comes into his room after his shower, draped in the bathrobe of some dead Man of Letters.

“Cas, buddy, why are you sitting here alone in the dark?” He asks, before flicking on the overhead light. It buzzes and flickers, before bathing the room in soft light.

Castiel shrugs.

 “Cas, man, you gotta talk to me. You haven’t been the same since…” He coughs but doesn’t finish his sentence.

“I’m fine, Dean,” he says.

“You know I don’t hold it against you, right? All those things you did while you were mind controlled, they aren’t your fault.” He comes and sits down on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight as he sits at the corner of the bed.

“Dean, I…”

“Look, it wasn’t you, okay? You only did what they wanted you to do. And I’m fine. Sam’s fine. Everyone’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

He sighed. Dean meant well and having his forgiveness, his understanding, was nice. But he was wrong. “Meg isn’t.”

“What was that?” Dean asked.

“Meg isn’t fine. She’s dead now because of me.”

“Yeah, but Meg was a demon.”

Castiel could only imagine the look on his face, because Dean reels back slightly, his eyes wide. “Oh.”

Castiel only nods.

Dean scratches at the back of his neck, dipping his head like a shy child. “Well, I don’t know…I mean, if you need anyone to talk to…I’ll do the best I can,” he says.

“Thank you.” And Castiel means it. Even though he knows he’ll never willingly bring it up to Dean. They may be best friends, but Dean it the worst person in the world when it comes to talking about his own pain, so he doubts Dean will know what to do with Castiel’s, other than try to shoulder it himself. Still, the sentiment is appreciated.

\-----

Castiel wakes up in the middle of a roadside forest god only knows where. He was tricked, deceived by Metatron for his grace. His palms are bleeding and his head is spinning and it hurts.  He’s human, now. And it hurts.

\-----

Castiel makes it back to the bunker on his own. He has blisters on the soles of his feet and a crick in his neck from where he’s been sleeping with his head against the window of a greyhound bus for the past four hours. He’s tired and hungry and the skin on his stomach is itchy from where his new tattoo is peeling. He’s sure he reeks, but Sam and Dean both wrap him in their arms by the time he’s barely made it down the stairs.

He showers. Dean shows him how to shave. Sam teaches him how to make his own fake IDs. His first ID says his name is Clarence Masters. Dean teases him about it being a porn name. He rolls his eyes, but it makes him smile.

\-----

He dreams now. Sometimes they’re good dreams, like when he dreams of walking through a rose garden with Meg. A butterfly would land on Meg’s nose and she’d blow at it until its iridescent blue wings flutter and it flies away. She would laugh, her nose crinkling as she did. Sometimes a ladybug would hand on his hand and she would take his hand, turning it as the little bug crawled across his skin.

She’d tell him, “Make a wish Clarence.”

“I wish for this,” he’d say, and the ladybug would fly away.

Sometimes his dreams are memories. Sometimes they’re nightmares. Tonight they were nightmares of Lucifer, his brother, sitting on his chest and taunting him.

“Look at you, pathetic little bird. You’re one of them now; one of those filthy, clumsy apes. All our brothers and sisters are banished now, trapped on his planet crawling with filth and monsters. And it’s all your fault now Castiel,” he had said.

Castiel had tried to deny it. He had tried to squirm free but it was no use.

“I bet they hate you more than they hate me,” Lucifer’s voice echoed through his bedroom. “Then again, it makes sense. You’re no better than me.”

He saw his brothers and sisters falling, their wings burning as they crashed to earth, their screams ringing in his ears. He saw himself as Lucifer. His bedroom became the cage, and Sam Winchester slumped at his feet, begging, for a death that will never come. His back is bruised and bloody, and Castiel couldn’t stop himself when his foot comes down on the back of Sam’s neck. He couldn’t stop himself from stomping. He couldn’t stop himself from kicking. He couldn’t stop Lucifer’s words coming out of his mouth in his voice.

He wakes screaming.

Dean and Sam burst into the room, guns drawn as they scan the room.

“What happened?” Dean asks, lowering his weapon.

“Nothing,” Castiel says, “it was just a nightmare.”

He’s trembling and his face is wet, but he doesn’t know whether it’s because of sweat or tears. If the pained looks on Dean and Sam’s face are anything to go by, it’s probably a combination of the two.

Sam comes closer, turning on the light on his bedside table. “Hey, Cas, you okay? Do you need some water or something?”

Castiel nods and Dean leaves the room, presumably for the water.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It was Lucifer,” is all he manages to say before he starts bawling. Sam pulls him into his arms, and he balls his fists into the front of Sam’s night shirt.

Sam holds him, whispering nonsense. At some point, Dean comes back into the room and rubs his hand up and down Castiel’s back. When he was in the hospital he would have dreams like these. Meg would hold him close in much the same way, and she would sing lullabies he hadn’t heard since the pyramids were built. He finds himself muttering some of the words while he sobs. It helps.

In the morning, after a few more hours of fitful sleep, Sam pulls him aside.

“I used to have them, too,” he says, “Nightmares about Lucifer, I mean. If you ever need to talk, I’m here.”

Castiel thanks him.

\-----

There is no therapy for people who live the lives they do. No therapist in the world can help them because no therapist in the world will believe them. Dean and Sam have scars because of the life they’ve lived, scars that run so deep they become a part of who they are. They have been managing, in one way or another, all of their lives. They have ways of coping. Dean goes to the firing range when he needs to blow off steam, Sam goes for a run. Sam reads to relax and get out of his own head, Dean watches movies.

Castiel is too young in humanity to know what works for him. He forgets to eat more often than not, in part because he doesn’t feel hungry, in part because he thinks it’s tedious. He hates going to be the bathroom. He likes to shower, but he can’t stand the smell of most of the soap in the bunker. His clothes are too itchy on his skin, and he lets his lips and knuckles get chapped to the point that they crack and bleed. He’s drunk himself to sleep more than once, much to Dean’s concern. Most of the alcohol got locked away after that, as did all the pills stronger than aspirin. Dean won’t tell him why so Castiel lets it go.

Three months into his humanity, Dean and Sam drag him with them to a Walmart in Hastings. They force him to pick out his own clothes. No “whatever you usually wear is fine for me” is allowed. He is petulant about it at first, but the new, lightweight fabric is well worth it. They tell him to pick out whatever sheets and candles and room décor he wants. He buys candles and purple sheets and Dean teases him about filming pornos in his bedroom.

Sam pulls him into the book section and tells him to get anything that strikes his fancy. He scowls at the Bibles and Christian literature. He tosses a romance novel with a shirtless cowboy on the front cover into the basket. He stops when he spies a particular book The Joys of Gardening on the lowest shelf.

“Is that something you would be interested in?” Sam asks.

“I have always loved nature,” he says.

“Get it. We can check out the garden center while we’re here, too.”

“We don’t have a garden at the bunker.”

“Well, not now, but we can always start on if that’s what you want.”

He buys that book too.

\----

Sam and Dean help Castiel prepare the soil behind the bunker. The PH level is a little low for the flowers he wants to grow, so they add pulverised limestone to the earth. Neither of them seems too keen on actually doing much in the way of gardening, and that’s perfectly fine with him. Castiel wants this for himself. He wants this for himself. He wants something that is uniquely his, something that he can create and nurture. He wants to be able to have proof of something good that’s come from his own hands.

He plants several potted plants he found in the Walmart garden center. A bush of white roses, a cluster of petunias, and small forget-me-not. The little blue flowers had wilted, probably due to lack of water and good sun. Dean had suggested he leave it, get something that didn’t look half dead, but Castiel insisted.

At night, he dreams about his garden. In his dream, it is lush and colorful. His rose bushes have grown past his head and they bloom in reds and oranges and purples. There is a bird bath in the center of a bed of wildflowers, and lavender grows beside a small bench. In his dream, Meg sits cross-legged, beside his flourishing forget-me-nots.

\-----

His garden grows. He ends up buying a gardening pad for his knees and a heating pad for his lower back. For centuries he never had to deal with the aches and cricks of sore and pulled muscles, and it takes getting used to. He dislikes the dirt that gets stuck under his fingernails, so he buys gloves. They help cut down on the scrapes and scratches he gets from weeds and thorns, too. He’s very glad he bought gloves.

The forget-me-nots start to come back to life after a few weeks. He asks for more plants for his garden, a few more rose bushes and some sod. Dean teaches him to drive in an old pick-up truck from the bunker’s garage, he drives them to Hastings and back, the bed loaded with fertilizer and plants. Dean tells him to keep the keys when he tries to give them back, after unloading the new pants.

By the end of spring, he has an impressive little sanctuary that is all his own. He spends time between hunts sitting in the sunshine, sometimes reading, sometimes not.

Sam tells him it’s nice to see him smile. He agrees.

\-----

It was a bad hunt. He knows that there will be casualties. He knows he will see people die. But this hunt was difficult. It was supposed to be routine. A nest of vampires is no match for three men, especially not three men as skilled with weaponry as they are. But, accidents happen sometimes. This time the vampires had captured a young couple, a man and a woman, and had been planning on bleeding them dry over the course of weeks. The man had been carrying a gun, which the vampires took for themselves. None of them noticed until it was too late.

The young woman, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, shoved him out of the way when the vampire fired a round at his back. She took the bullet square in her chest, and he held her while the light left her eyes.

Killing the vampires helped ease the rage, but it did nothing for his guilt.

Castiel allows himself to cry when they get back to the bunker. He doesn’t bother with a shower first, he just marches out to his garden and sobs. If he were still and angel he could have saved her. If he were still an angel he could have killed the vampires without effort. If he was still an angel it might have mattered. She was so young and beautiful and had her whole life ahead of her, and now she was gone and he never even learned her name.

“I failed,” he whispers out loud. “I failed at being an angel and I failed at saving that girl. I couldn’t save her. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” He mutters the words over and over again, conjuring the faces of everyone he’s ever wronged in his mind.

He hears Meg’s voice, clear as a bell in his head, _Come on now Clarence, this tragic hero crap doesn’t suit you. Don’t beat yourself up. That’s my job._

He sits up with a start.

“Meg?”

But she’s not there. There’s no one but him. He sniffles, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

“I miss you,” he says, “God, I miss you.”

Castiel doesn’t sleep that night. He drinks more coffee than he probably should and walks the halls of the bunker. Sam offers to talk. Dean offers to watch a movie. He refuses them both. He doesn’t want to talk, at least not to them. He wants to talk to the one person he knows he can never reach. He wants to scream and yell and cry and lament all the things he’ll never get to have. He doesn’t know what happens when demons die, or angels for that matter. He knows that human souls, even those twisted and corrupted to the point that they become demons, are pure energy, and energy cannot be destroyed. It’s impossible that Meg would just cease to exist because she died, so then what happened. Is she in Hell again? Was she reincarnated? Is there somewhere else demons go when they die?

As if on autopilot, Castiel makes his way to his garden. He sits in front of his forget-me-nots, which nearly glow blue in the silvery moonlight, and he talks. At first, it’s just to hear himself say the words but slowly he finds himself talking to Meg.

“I wish we had more time,” he says, “I wish I could have told you, when I wasn’t half out of my mind, that I loved you. I wish you were here with me.”

He doesn’t make it back inside until dawn.

\----

He talks to Meg every day. He only does it when he’s alone, but it starts to help. He thinks it’s a little like prayer, even if she can’t hear him and nothing will happen because of it. Actually, it’s a lot like prayer. 

After a while, it stops being a lament and becomes about his life. He tells her about his plans for the garden and about the new tomes he and Sam are working on translating. He tells her when Sam starts dating a hunter named Eileen, and when Dean meets a man named Aaron. He tells her about the new crib he and Dean are building for Sam’s first child and he tears up years later when he tells her how little Deanna Winchester asked if her “Uncle Cas” could take over reading bedtime stories to her and her brother Henry.

He talks about the waitresses that flirt with him in the various dinners he’s been to across the country, and can practically see her scowl in his mind. He tells her about Marge, who runs the dinner in Jewell who’s pushing seventy and dies her hair pink. He tells her about the new computers and smart phones he refuses to use and he can imagine her calling him an old man.

He tells her about his job at the library and the friends he makes there. He talks about writing a book about his life and selling it as fiction and decides against it several times. He introduces her to the cat he adopts from the animal shelter when he brings the fur-ball to sit with him in the garden. He imagines her full-bodied laughter the first time the cat chases a bird into the bird bath and gets drenched.

He tells her when his hair starts going grey and about his first pair of glasses, as he’s nearsighted now. He complains to her about his stiff joints and about the carpal tunnel in his wrists. He complains to her when he realizes he’s lost almost all the Korean he knew. He tells her he’s afraid of dying.

One day, in the middle of March, he doesn’t return to his garden.

\-----

Castiel wakes up engulfed by white light. There are no walls, no ceiling, and no floor, only light.

“It’s good to see you again, Castiel.” The voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, and Castiel searches the emptiness for its source.

“Who’s there?” He asks, “Where am I?”

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize it. It’s your home, after all.” A short man materializes in front of him, clothed in a striped bathrobe and plaid pyjama pants.

“Chuck?”

“No. Well, yes, you know me better as Father.”

“You were God?”

Chuck shrugs, “Don’t sound so surprised. I did tell you guys the first time met you.”

Castiel barely suppresses an eye roll. “So, I’m dead then.”

“Looks that way.”

“And you wanted to speak with me because…”

Chuck shakes his head but he smiles. “That’s what I always liked about you, Castiel. Of all my children, you were the one to ask the important questions. Why does it need to be this way? Isn’t there another way of doing things? What’s the point of giving sharks two penises? You’ve always been so curious. And, you care. Some of your brothers and sisters thought it was a flaw; that you had too much heart, but there is no such thing. If all my children had your capacity for love and affection, well, I wouldn’t’ve had to go back here.”

Castiel takes a deep breath, composing himself. “Father…”

“No, no, let me finish. I’ve been bad at my job,”

Castiel isn’t able to resist the raised eyebrow he gives his Father.

“But! But, I’m back. And I know I wasn’t there for you when you were on earth and I didn’t even try to stop the end of the world and I never answered your prayers. I know it’s too little too late for a lot of things, but I figure, if there’s one thing I can do now, it's making sure you get a good afterlife. You deserve that much at least.”

“Okay…”

“So,” he turns to the side and behind him a wooden door materializes, “wanna take a peek at what’s behind door number one?”

Castiel moves past him, setting his hand on the doorknob. He looks back at his Father, expecting some kind of joke or catch but Chuck just smiles.

He turns the knob and is bathed in summer sunlight. Birds chirp in the air around him, and the soft scent of wet earth and wild lavender fills his nose. The door eases shut behind him as he walks through the doorway.

“It’s my garden,” he mutters to himself, taking in the world around him. It’s exactly as he left it, with lush green grass under his bare feet. A blue bird bathes in the bird bath in the center of a patch of wildflowers.

“It’s about damn time you got here. I mean, not that I wanted you to die or anything, but…”

“Meg?”

She’s sitting here, right by his forget-me-nots, her dark hair in spiral curls around her face. She flashes her cocky little grin and him, and he nearly collapses.

“Is it… are you real?”

“As real as you.”

“How?”

She rises to her feet. “Looks like someone’s daddy’s favorite,” she says.

He doesn’t waste another minute, cupping her face with his hands and kissing her like it’s his last chance. She kisses back with the same fire, wrapping her legs around his waist and threading her fingers through his hair. They pull away, breathless. He presses his forehead to hers and pulls in a shaky breath.

“I love you,” he says, “and I’m never letting you go again.”

“You sure about that Clarence? You’re going to be holding on to me forever, then,” she says.

“Still not long enough for me.” He kisses her again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. I'm such a freaking sap.  
> Also, if you wanna come talk to me about rare pairs here's my [tumblr](https://jamesnovakwinchester.tumblr.com/). Or if you wanna see my main blog, [this is it here](http://rosemoonweaver.tumblr.com/).


End file.
